4 Friday 11th April, 2008 German parliament Leaders say Mugabe will brief regional marks Nazis' 1933 destruction of leaders on situation in democracy HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) - Sikhanyiso Ndlovu told The Associated "Definitely I think the Botswana Zimbabwe said Thursday it welcomed Press. president was very helpful to us ... he BERLIN (AP) - 's parlia- an emergency summit of southern But he said the meeting wasn't nec- would also like to participate in assist- ment on Thursday remembered the African leaders as an opportunity for essary. "There is no crisis in Zimbabwe ing in whatever way he can to resolve Nazis' swift destruction of democracy President to explain the that warrants a special meeting on the crisis," Tsvangirai aide George after Adolf Hitler took power 75 years situation here, but denied there was a Zimbabwe," he said. Sibotshiwe said Thursday from ago, and paid tribute to those lawmakers crisis in the country 12 days after a Mwanawasa originally planned to Botswana. who held out against the Nazis' drive to contentious presidential election. send a delegation of former heads of MDC spokesman Nelson Chamisa extinguish political opposition. The opposition Movement for state to Zimbabwe but decided to hold said Tsvangirai will ask regional lead- Chancellor Angela Merkel and Democratic Change says its candidate, an urgent summit instead because the ers to "pressure and counsel Mugabe to President Horst Koehler attended a Morgan Tsvangirai, won the March 29 situation had grown so serious, accept the verdict of the people." solemn hour-long session in Berlin's vote outright, and accused Mugabe of Zambian state radio reported. "The issues are to help restored Reichstag building, whose delaying the results so he can orches- Deputy Information Minister Bright Zimbabweans realize or resolve their torching in early 1933 was one of the trate a runoff and give ruling party Matonga confirmed that Mugabe would crisis. We have done our bit and events that allowed Hitler to consolidate militants time to intimidate voters and be at the meeting. Mugabe was defeated," Chamisa said in his grip on power. ensure he wins a second election. "If there is a SADC meeting of a telephone interview. "We bow today before all the victims , Minster of Justice of the National Socialist dictatorship," With no resolution in sight, heads of state, then obviously he will South African President Thabo and Legal Affairs addresses a press Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa attend," he told the AP. Mbeki is ready to meet with Tsvangirai Parliament President Norbert Lammert conference in Harare, Wednesday, said in a speech to lawmakers. called an emergency summit of the Tsvangirai is on trip around the but has yet to receive an official April, 9, 2008. Chinamasa attacked the Southern African Development region, beginning Wednesday with request for a meeting, Mbeki's Hitler convinced ailing President main opposition party for claiming vic- Paul von Hindenburg to appoint him Community for Saturday to discuss the Botswana, to ask Mugabe's peers to spokesman Mukoni Ratshitanga said. tory in the Presidential elections when crisis. push him to end the standoff. He met "If Tsvangirai requests a meeting chancellor on Jan. 30, 1933. offical results have not yet been By the time the Nazis staged book "Such meetings are usually very with Botswana's President Seretse Ian with the president, he will grant one," released. He also said his party was healthy so heads of state can brief each Khama and hoped to travel to four or Ratshitanga said, adding that Mbeki burnings on May 10, "the new regime confident of victory in the event of a had in a few weeks, after a legal change other, not only us in Zimbabwe," five other countries before Saturday, had not decided whether to attend the run off election. A photo of President Zimbabwean Information Minister opposition officials said. Zambia summit. of government, worked its way through Mugabe hangs at rear. (AP) almost everything that would set the tone for the next 12 years: breaking the law, breaking the constitution, breaking with civilization," Lammert said. A month after Hitler took power, he Dalai Lama used the torching of the Reichstag - Nepal votes in historic election blamed on Dutch communist Marinus van der Lubbe - to strengthen his grip arrives in Japan KATMANDU, Nepal on power, suspending civil liberties and (AP) - Nepalis voted cracking down on opposition parties in ahead of US visit Thursday in a historic elec- paving the way for the police state. tion intended to bring com- On March 23, parliament approved munist insurgents into the the Enabling Act, "enabling" Hitler's country's democratic main- Cabinet to issue decrees without the stream and expected to end need for approval by lawmakers or the the world's last Hindu president and effectively giving him dic- monarchy. tatorial powers. Voters lined up before Lawmakers heard Thursday what dawn across the country, Lammert called "the last truly free undeterred by violence that words in the German Reichstag" - marred the days preceding extracts of a speech in which Social the country's first election Democratic parliamentary leader Otto in nine years. And while vot- Wels opposed the act, declaring that ing was smooth throughout "they can take away our freedom and life much of the Himalayan - not our honor." country, there was scattered The Enabling Act won the approval violence, including an of 444 lawmakers; with communist law- attempt to kill one candi- makers and Social Democrats already date, the torching of a excluded, only the remaining 94 from polling station and the death Wels' party voted against. of one man in a clash "They refused to give the violent between political rivals. overthrow (of democracy) the badge of "I came to vote here today legality," Lammert said. "With that, they believing this process will - most of them then as now unknown to settle political instability for a wide public - became silent heroes of Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama good," said Mukunda democracy and parliamentarism." gestures during a press conference at Maraseni, a 40-year-old Hans-Jochen Vogel, a former justice a hotel near Narita international airport banker waiting to cast his minister and Social Democratic leader, in Narita, east of Tokyo, Thursday, April ballot in Katmandu. pointed to the lessons for the future, at a 10, 2008. The election of a Nepalese women vote at a polling station near a temple Thursday April 10, 2008, in Patan, time when Germany has worried about Constituent Assembly to NARITA, Japan (AP) - The Dalai Nepal. Nepalis voted Thursday in a historic election intended to bring communist insur- the success of fringe far-right parties in write a new constitution has Lama arrived Thursday in Japan on gents into the country's democratic mainstream and expected to end a monarchy that has entering some of its state parliaments been touted as the corner- his way to the United States, amid ruled for centuries.(AP) over recent years. protests around the world over China's stone of a 2006 peace deal handling of unrest in his native Tibet. struck with former rebels the southern town of tion. optimism that the election The Buddhist spiritual leader known as Maoists following Janakpur but she escaped In the southern village of would finally bring lasting weeks of unrest that forced arrived at Tokyo's main international unhurt, said district officer Bhutana, a man died after peace and an economic Nepal's king to end his dicta- Ram Sharan Chimoiorya. being seriously wounded in revival to the impoverished airport and was quickly escorted to a torship and restore democra- In the central village of a clash between supporters Himalayan nation, where 60 Fifty-four Myanmar nearby hotel. He was to hold a news cy. Galkot, Maoists tried to take of the centrist Nepali percent of the 27 million peo- conference later in the day before trav- Security was tight with over a polling station and Congress and a minority ple are under age 35 and eling on to Seattle, where he was workers suffocate 17.6 million people regis- then torched the building ethnic group, the Madeshis, many were voting for the scheduled to give a lecture. tered to vote at about 20,000 after scuffling with police who have long agitated for first time. Protests have been held in cities polling stations, some of and election officials, said more autonomy, said a local About 35 percent of vot- around the world in a show of sympa- in back of truck in them a seven-day walk from the area's top official, official, Rajan Pokhrel. ers had cast ballots by noon, thy for Tibet, where anti-government the nearest paved road. The Bhawani Prashad Parajuli. Polling was suspended at halfway through the voting, riots erupted last month. election was being moni- Police later arrested 15 men, about 20 stations, including a said Home Secretary Umesh Thailand Chinese authorities, concerned tored by some 100,000 seizing three grenades and a few in the eastern Ramechap Mainali. about unrest ahead of this summer's observers, including former knife. district where Maoists "I have come of age never Olympic Games in Beijing, have tight- U.S. President Jimmy Carter. Maoist officials in blocked representatives of being allowed to choose my ly restricted access to Tibet and Disturbances were Katmandu said they were other parties from observing government," said 26-year- Tibetan areas of western China where reported in at least a half trying to verify the report, the vote, said Home Ministry old Yuvraj Sharma, who protests also broke out. The sometimes dozen remote areas. but insisted there was no spokesman Ekmani Nepal. works at the Home Ministry. violent anti-government demonstra- Motorcycle-riding gun- concerted effort on their Despite the scattered vio- "If the people are heard, we tions were the largest among Tibetans men shot at a candidate in part to undermine the elec- lence, there was widespread will have peace." in almost two decades. The Dalai Lama, whom Beijing claims has fomented the unrest, has called for calm, but the protests have shown little sign of abating. Japan's government has been rela- Thousands of Tibetans hold anti-China protest in New Delhi tively quiet about the violence in Tibet and, out of deference to Beijing, does NEW DELHI (AP) - and remove its heavy military Chinese authorities say 22 "If they are wise enough, Thailand volunteer rescue workers col- not deal officially with the Dalai Thousands of Tibetan demon- presence from the region. people died in the riots that some path for reconciliation lect the bodies of dead Myanmar migrant Lama. strators carried 154 shrouded Roughly 200 protesters broke out March 14. might be opened," Rinpoche workers Thursday, April 10, 2008, from Tokyo does, however, grant visas to effigies, representing the com- marched to New Delhi from China has accused the told reporters in New Delhi, the back of a seafood van in Ranong, the spiritual leader, who has visited patriots they believed were Dharmsala, the seat of Tibet's Dalai Lama, a Nobel Peace where he addressed the pro- Thailand. Fifty-four migrant workers from Japan fairly frequently. Buddhism is killed in a crackdown on anti- government-in-exile and home Prize laureate, of orchestrat- testers. "If they remain rigid, Myanmar, most of them women, suffocat- one of Japan's main religions, along China protests in the to the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan ing the violence to sabotage the movement will not end ed in the back of an unventilated seafood Himalayan region, in a rally spiritual leader. The rest of the Beijing Olympic Games in and it will sustain by itself." with the indigenous Shinto faith. truck in southern Thailand while being Thursday in the Indian capi- the demonstrators arrived August and create an inde- The protests are the No meetings were planned between smuggled to the popular resort island of tal. from neighboring states. pendent state. longest and most sustained the Dalai Lama and government offi- Phuket, police said Thursday. (AP) Carrying placards saying The crowd carried effigies Samdhong Rinpoche, the challenge to China's 57-year cials although Japanese media said "Stop Cultural Genocide in to represent the 154 victims prime minister of the Tibetan rule in the Himalayan region, BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) - Fifty-four the wife of former Prime Minister Tibet" and "China has turned they believe were killed in the government-in-exile, said and have focused increased illegal migrants from Myanmar, most of them Shinzo Abe would meet with him. Tibet into a Killing Field," protests and the ensuing Tibetan leaders were hoping international scrutiny and women, suffocated in the back of an unventi- Neither Abe's office nor the Dalai protesters urged China to crackdown in the Tibetan cap- for a peaceful settlement with criticism on China in the run- lated truck in southern Thailand while being Lama's liaison office in Tokyo could release imprisoned Tibetans ital, Lhasa, last month. China. up to this summer's games. smuggled to the resort island of Phuket, confirm the reports. police said Thursday. The victims, along with 47 survivors, had entered Thailand to seek jobs in the booming tourist center. President’s... From page 1 Our father... From page 1 They had been forced to stand in the locked and sweltering container area of the “I recall how we did our friendship was work- down in just a flash by the the SLFP and worked for A few days before his Speaker, Leader of the truck, normally used to carry seafood, police our studies together and ing as cabinet colleagues cruel separatist terrorists strengthening its organi- tragic death, he had cele- Opposition, Ministers and survivors said. how we spent the holidays of the same government as he held two heavy zational structure. brated his only daugh- and Parliamentarians, They were on the road in Ranong province at Medamulana or our in the decade of the 90s responsibilities as the He was not only a ter’s success at GCE the diplomatic Corps and near Myanmar for about two hours late trips in the Yal Devi in the and though he was not Leader of the House and leader of the government (O/L) examination. “He all other members and Wednesday when they started collapsing, they north and the times we given any specific respon- the Minister of Highways. and the SLFP but also was was a very happy man at officials of the provincial said. Temperatures in the province reached 34 spent with our friends at sibility how he did not get His efficient service in a citizen who did not degrees Celsius (93 Fahrenheit) Wednesday. Karainagar. offended but continued to building new roads and shirk his responsibilities the time of his death,” and local authorities. "I thought everyone was going to die," Saw The second phase of discharge his responsibili- highways across the coun- and my friend left an one of his relatives told They thanked each one in Win, a 30-year-old survivor, told The our friendship started as ty and protect the party. try touring every region indelible mark on the The Island. the speeches they made Associated Press from police custody."If the members of parliament Had he lived he would I of the country and his political life of this coun- The late Minister’s in Sinhala and English. truck had driven for 30 minutes more, I would representing the same am certain not only pro- outstanding service like try and I would like to call daughter Samurdhi held Samurdhi made spe- have died for sure." party that started during tected the SLFP but also building flyovers has it the Jeyraj’s mark but at back tears for her father cial mention of the He said that about 30 minutes into the trip the most dangerous politi- do everything possible to endeared him to the peo- this moment when his to thank all those who Director and staff of the the occupants pounded on the inside of the cal period during the 80s protect our country. ple. services and assistance had joined in mourning Gampaha hospital and truck, screamed for air and used a mobile and without considering The fourth phase of As one of the leaders was needed by the coun- phone to call the driver, who briefly turned on Jeyaraj and assisted in others who had treated air conditioning. the threat to his life how our close friendship starts who firmly believed in try more than at any time funeral arrangements. those who were injured he sought to work so that with my being given the peace he not only exer- the savage terrorists The air conditioning later shut down, and Bhanuka and in the bomb blast that others could live and with- responsibility of becom- cised utmost restraint and assassinated not only they called the driver again 30 minutes later out doubt Jeyraj set the ing the President. My patience at the negotia- Jeyraj but the noble facets Samurdhi mentioned all killed her father and all but his phone was off. They continued pound- f d ti f l d i h th th t ti t bl d l th fd h di prelates and clergy of all people who had put up ing and screaming until he stopped the truck